Ethnic Minority Leaders in White Majority Churches (Part II: Diversifying Worship Leaders)

How I went about diversifying worship leaders

Read Part I: Cycle of Representation where I share about how I went from token Asian worship leader to figure of representation for ethnic minorities, and explain the social psychology behind the importance of diverse leadership.

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Years ago, I got one of our new Nigerian worship team members to lead ‘Way Maker’ – a Nigerian worship song. It was the song he’d chosen to sing for his audition, and I was excited because it felt like a moment of authentic representation.

However, Sandra Maria Van Opstal says that leading worship at a diverse church ‘is not primarily about collecting songs and components from different traditions and assigning people from those traditions to lead (tokenism), but allowing the traditions of team members to shape the overall community and worship experience.’¹

In Part I, I explained how I was the token Asian worship leader at a particular white majority church, one amongst a few other ethnic minority leaders who were all trying their best to lead in a culturally acceptable way (read: white western dominant culture), whilst simultaneously wanting not to erase their own styles and traditions.

Two standout moments:

1. A Black British worship leader led a fun reggae version of ‘Mighty to Save’ arranged by Israel Houghton, but the majority of our congregation struggled to join in – mainly an awkward mixture of amusement and discomfort. (I had a blast playing bass!)

2. On Pentecost Sunday, we did ‘How Great is Our God’ led in different languages by members of our congregation, which was moving, albeit safe and accessible.² But what was radical was one of our more charismatic Nigerian worship leaders leading Israel Houghton’s ‘You Are Good’ as he leapt across the stage and hit Mariah Carey-esque notes, the congregation clapping and moving and singing with gusto. (This had never happened on a Sunday before!)

Okay, there was definitely something to pursue here. So began a process of diversifying worship leaders, firstly, in order to reflect the growing ethnic minority demographic in our congregation, and secondly, to shift the cultural norm and facilitate greater musical diversity to enrich the church’s worship life.

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Photo by Memento Media on Unsplash

In Part I, I delved into why representation isn’t just important but a crucial must, a necessary first step. Becky Ykema recommends starting with the basics, ‘with a worship team where more than one ethnicity is represented.’³ I began by identifying and recruiting ethnic minorities in our congregation to join the worship team – being particularly attentive to those on the margins, as well as those with a clear worship gifting/anointing – and provided personalised mentoring and training.

To move from tokenism to empowerment, we then allowed ethnic minority members not just to participate, but also to influence. Van Opstal distinguishes: ‘Tokenism pats itself on the back for having an Asian person on the worship team. Empowerment allows space for that Asian person to influence what happens on the team and on Sunday morning.’⁴ We selected individuals to attend strategy meetings. I invited potential leaders to shadow me, co-planning and co-leading worship sets together. We also provided support structures (e.g. mentors, mediated feedback) for those who especially bore the brunt of representation.⁵

Photo by Kristina Paparo on Unsplash

Empowerment is a two-way effort: yes, we guide them to understand the current culture as they begin influencing it, but we also need to proactively learn, understand and familiarise ourselves with their cultures more in depth so we can support them better. This is where cultural sociology comes in handy. (Note: Remember, these are archetypes rather than stereotypes – at the end of the day, get to know and work with each beautifully unique individual!)

Take, for example, Asian culture. Asian hierarchical culture means that silence and submission is generally viewed as respectful, whereas in western culture it can be perceived as apathy, lack of leadership skills or agreement/consensus (even if they disagree).⁶ Paul Tokunaga explains how ‘it feels presumptuous, aggressive and even arrogant to raise a hand and say, “I’ll do it.” ... What is called respect in one culture looks like apathy in another’.⁷ Van Opstal continues: ‘In some cultures leaders are applauded for stepping up; in others leaders disqualify themselves by assuming they can lead. They need a sponsor to invite them to lead.’⁸

I didn’t put myself forwards when I first came to a western church, and if one of the staff hadn’t asked me to lead worship, I probably wouldn’t have. So it was, too, with an Indonesian worship leader who I had to approach and ask to lead, as she wouldn’t have volunteered herself. I needed a sponsor; I was also someone else’s sponsor. It was further telling that in order for a shy Chinese student to come up to me after a service to volunteer for the worship team, her bolder Chinese friend had to literally drag her up by the arm and ask on her behalf.

I’ve also noticed some East Asian (and other ethnic minority) leaders capitulating to my leadership, at times in a self-deprecating manner, even when I explicitly ask for their input. It’s taken gentle yet persistent encouragement – that we really do value their contributions – and permission-giving on my part before they’ve taken ownership. Understanding cultural sociology has equipped me to better empower ethnic minority leaders, and I’m still learning, day by day.⁹

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A new Nigerian worship leader joined our team. No, I didn’t ask her to lead ‘Way Maker’ (though ironically it was the song she’d also chosen to sing for her audition). Instead, I asked her to pick familiar songs from the repertoire – but this time, I encouraged her to lead them in the exuberant pentecostal style that she was used to back home. It was testament to how far we’d come where she felt empowered enough to ‘release’ herself, and the congregation were also able to participate in worship.

There was a particularly beautiful moment where she felt comfortable and confident enough to sing spontaneously during a service. Little did we know that it was a refrain of a well-known song back in Nigeria… and it just so happened that a new Nigerian family who’d recently migrated to the UK were visiting our church for the first time that week, and they were overjoyed to hear something so close to home! Giving her permission and freedom to lead meant we unwittingly – and prophetically – facilitated a divine welcome.

Photo by Adeyemi Emmanuel Abebayo on Unsplash

Finding the balance between maintaining built trust and jolting people out of their comfort zone is a delicate task. It’s always going to be a stretching process for the majority group, and these things take time. Van Opstal acknowledges this by explaining that because God’s people are diverse, there will be tension, and ‘[t]his is particularly pronounced in worship, where people desire authentic spaces to express themselves.’¹⁰

But acknowledging the majority group will always be a primary concern. Greg Scheer says ‘it is often necessary to tip the balance in favor of the outsider’, because compared to insiders who already feel welcomed, outsiders require ‘a lot more attention to feel truly welcomed.’¹¹ Besides, English being the lingua franca of the songs we sing is the biggest way of accommodating the majority group; and the global commercialisation of western worship music is another unifying factor.¹²

Van Opstal says: ‘It is no longer a question of whether we like or want diversity. The church is diverse. And congregational worship should reflect the diversity of God’s people, even if a local congregation itself is not diverse.’¹³ This is by no means a tokenistic mindset, nor merely ‘a “politically correct” multicultural agenda’; it’s a prophetic act.¹⁴ It reminds churches that we are part of the global Church, challenging us to extend hospitality, stand in solidarity and embrace mutuality – particularly with ethnic minorities.¹⁵

1. Sandra Maria Van Opstal, The Next Worship: Glorifying God in a Diverse World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016), p. 80.

2. Interestingly, this was also done at the Passion Conference (known as the ‘World Edition’), which has been criticised for centring ‘white male subjectivity’ – see Monique M. Ingalls, ‘Singing Heaven Down to Earth’, in Singing the Congregation: How Contemporary Worship Music Forms Evangelical Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), p. 86. Van Opstal points out that ‘merely singing in different languages or having a multicolored team’ can still be tokenism (p. 87). Whereas contrast Passion to the Urbana Conference which prioritises and embodies ‘multi-ethnic worship’ – Ingalls, p. 90. (Their live album, Urbana 18 Live: Faithful Witness, is one of my favourites.)

3. Van Opstal, p. 100. On a slight tangent, even prioritising ethnically diverse congregants with various accents to do Bible readings each week can go a long way, letting people know they can serve and lead without having to be white and speak in a posh English accent.

4. Van Opstal, p. 113.

5. I also conducted a survey of past and present ethnic minority congregants to amplify and feedback their voices to leadership; and facilitated discussions with church staff to inform, educate and train them on racial justice issues. But I wasn’t there long enough to know whether meaningful and lasting structural changes truly occurred.

6. Sarah Shin, Beyond Colorblind: Redeeming Our Ethnic Journey (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2017), p. 132.

7. Van Opstal, p. 85.

8. Van Opstal, p. 85.

9. Another example with a different culture: It was massively helpful to learn (e.g. reading about it, listening to gospel artists) that African/Black British worship leaders often incorporated call and response.

10. Van Opstal, p. 23.

11. Greg Scheer, Essential Worship: A Handbook for Leaders (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016), p.

12. Even in Zulu churches in South Africa, imported Hillsong songs are sung in English because they ‘accommodate everybody in the church’; and in Hong Kong’s Chinese churches many prefer singing in English because ‘they feel that the language allows for greater emotional meaning to be conveyed’ – see Mark Evans, ‘Hillsong Abroad: Tracing the Songlines of Contemporary Pentecostal Music,’ in The Spirit of Praise: Music and Worship in Global Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, ed. Monique M. Ingalls and Amos Yong (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), pp. 188, 192. Imperialist connotations aside, this can be seen as an advantage.

13. Van Opstal, p. 14.

14. Scheer, p. 242.

15. Van Opstal, p. 74.